I’ve rather loved the role of Rockefellers as an antidote to the douchey scions of rich families. It’ll be the first time in my life a Rockerfeller was not in the Senate. He’s done good work on so many issues, so I’m sorry to see him go, but it’s time. I hope there’s a strong candidate in the wings.

Strangely enough one of our NC long time reps died yesterday, less than a week after she retired from the State senate. I didn’t know Jean Preston but if it were me I would be mightily pissed off if I retired from the House and Senate after 20 odd years and never got to cash even one retirement check.

@Litlebritdifrnt: Reminds me of former Pittsburgh Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh. He did four different stints running the club, returning to the dugout when the team ran into (frequent) jams, despite initially retiring in 1964 because of health concerns. He and general manager Joe L. Brown both announced their this-is-it, no-fooling, not-coming-back retirements the last month of the 1976 season. Brown enjoyed a long retirement, dying only a couple of years ago in his 90s, but Murtaugh suffered a fatal stroke only a couple of months after the end of the 1976 season.

I don’t think we could possibly get a socially progressive senator out of WVA, but it seems to me (from Maryland) that it ought to be possible to get a pro-labor senator. Most of the people I know in WVA have positive feelings towards the union movement. Of course, that may just be ‘most of the people I know’ confirmation bias, but it’s a hopeful thought.

WVA would seem to be ripe for another Richard Mourdock/Christine O’Donnell teatard Republican to lose in.

Reminds me of the Johnny Carson special I saw part of last night. Everyone was sad that he retired – but he’d been at it for 30 years! He got to go on safari in Africa and enjoy his life for a while before he sadly passed away. Also he went out on a high note, and timing is everything.

I think Cole should run for Senate on the platform of making the payroll tax holiday permanent. This shit is outrageous!
I suggest we raise the eligibility age of Medicare and go to C-CPI on SS in exchange for reinstating the payroll tax holiday.

IIJM, or does it seem like every single general election (even-numbered years) is a “uphill climb for Democrats in the Senate” according to our “MSM”?? Democrats hold a ten-seat majority in the upper house, but it seems that they always have many more seats to defend/run for than Republicans.

I’m afraid this seat will become red. Rockefeller was as good as possible for WV I think.

I’ve got two words for you: Sharon Angle. Don’t underestimate ability of the mouth-breathers to get a full-on ranting lunatic through the primary process onto the Republican ballot. A don’t know how much the GOP machine has their side of WV politics locked down, but these idiots are always a surprise before they win the primary….

Why, so you can get an R in that seat instead? DiFi is the best D it’s possible to get in a red state like CA

Umm, in case you haven’t been paying attention, at the present time every statewide office in California is held by a Democrat, Democrats have two-thirds majorities in both houses of the Legislature, and the House delegation is split 35 Democrats vs. 18 Republicans.

Look, I’ll agree as much as the next guy that he’s much, much better than some of the alternatives, but IIRC he was on a committee that could have investigated the Iraq fiasco, and as we all know, no substantial investigation was forthcoming. Which means he’s either corrupt or a wimp.

@burnspbesq: No kidding. Obama won CA by 3,000,000 votes – 23 points. Pretty much the same percentage margin as MA. And we sent all of our Democrats back to the House in 2010 (pretty much the only state to do that), and sent more in 2012.

I don’t think there’s any state trending more strongly Democratic right now.

We’ll miss Rocky here. My family doctor (seeing the same Dr for 35 years!) used to have a picture of him and Gov. Arch More (felon) in his office. The appointment after Mr. Moore (using the Mr term loosely) plead guilty that photo op was history.

Soon after Dr. realized who was in favor of health care and who was not, and a Jay IV poster went up. Jay did good work for the state of W Va, and for the USofA. He deserves a happy and long retirement with grandkids and dogs.

Like others, unless a truly wild-eyed tea party Republican’t gets the nomination, I don’t see another even partly progressive Dem getting elected. The state has changed a whole lot since I was first 21 and able to vote. Most state-wide R candidates have been rich businessmen, crazy but camo’ed by the money.

at the present time every statewide office in California is held by a Democrat, Democrats have two-thirds majorities in both houses of the Legislature, and the House delegation is split 35 Democrats vs. 18 Republicans.

Democratic gains in California were pretty much cemented by last year’s general election. It’s been a twenty-year process, but the CA GOP has slowly-but-surely alienated pretty much every voting bloc outside their Angry Old White Guy “base”. And it’s had an effect.

Damn. Jay was the only West Virginia Democratic senator I could halfway stand, even though he has taken positions in recent years that drive me crazy. Came to the state as a VISTA volunteer and stayed.

My favorite West Virginia Democrat would have to be longtime WV secretary of state Ken Hechler, but he’s now 99 years old.

Okay, strategery time. The WV Dems will almost certainly pick a Manchin- or Rahall-style backstabbing right-wing asshole, if they don’t simply go with Keith Judd, the convicted felon who pulled in 41% in the 2012 Democratic Presidential primary. So Cole needs to dust off his pre-Schiavo persona and run as a Republican. All those drunken tweets, hippie rants, pantsless interludes, and lurid pet photos? Once Cole has an R after his name, he simply declares that he’s found JAYsus. Whereupon anything embarrassing, morally questionable, or outright criminal disappears in a puff of wingnut dumbshit hypocrisy. Once he’s safely elected, which as a “big-boned” white guy who’s a military veteran and a recliner enthusiast should be no problem (Slogan: “COAL TASTES GREAT”), he switches parties again and laughs maniacally, because he’s in for six years whether the rubes like it or not.

In short, there are no flaws whatsoever in this plan, and the donation link to help make it happen needs to be posted immediately.

It is probably Rockefeller’s and Byrd’s doing that WV has the highest Federal reimbursement rate in the nation, including Alaska. And yet it is becoming a Red state. The classic Red state formula-hostility to the Federal government while you suck at its tit on our dime.

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